


Soulmates in a World run by Demons

by WitchipediaAus



Category: The New Legends of Monkey (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Genderfluid Character, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, One Shot, implied anyhow, this fandom doesn't have any soulmate aus and im here to fix that, tripi can't process emotions and neither can monkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 02:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16735062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchipediaAus/pseuds/WitchipediaAus
Summary: As the Scholar and the others spoke and she was heating up water, she traced her mark. The writing looked harsh, scratchy, like the person who had written it wasn’t good at writing, or at least not neatly. Maybe in a rush, at the time.





	Soulmates in a World run by Demons

**Author's Note:**

> im going to make the monkey & pigsy tag a real thing i swear to god. that is my only goal right now

Soulmates were a weird concept, in a world run by demons.

The idea of settling down with someone, when there was so much more to be done, so much action one could take against how the world was going, so much fear in what was going to happen tomorrow, was especially horrifying to her.

She’d never seen the Scholar’s mark. He never deemed it necessary. He told her, though, when she was young, that if she ever met her soulmate while they were preparing, she was welcome to leave. Welcome to go elsewhere with someone she was filled with dread at the prospect of meeting.

Soulmate or not, they were a stranger, and she wasn’t one for strangers.

\----

Climbing the mountain was peaceful. It helped her get out of her head, and that’s why she did it, most of the time.

Today, though, she had another motive.

Seeing everything and knowing that you weren’t significant to everyone’s day to day routine was comforting, in a way, to her, but she had a part to play today, at the very least.

People were coming to her home, to plan and, hopefully, change the world for the better.

\----

As the Scholar and the others spoke and she was heating up water, she traced her mark. _Ah, monk, if you can fight or have any weapons, now might be a good time._  The writing looked harsh, scratchy, like the person who had written it wasn’t good at writing, or at least not neatly. Maybe in a rush, at the time.

It concerned her greatly, though, as it always had. She wasn’t a monk and she didn’t know how to fight, and she definitely didn’t have any weapons on her normally.

The Scholar never offered any insight, either. When she was young, it felt like he was withholding something from her, but as she grew up, it made more sense. He simply didn’t know. She couldn’t expect him to know everything, really.

Deep down, she wished he knew, so he could answer her questions and concerns. But it was selfish, she knew, so she kept it to herself.

\----

She could barely keep herself from crying as she clenched the pin the Scholar had given her, running through the forest she’d grown up in.

Avoiding the town had been a good way to avoid meeting people, where her soulmate could be, but now...

She was a little desperate, now, for a place to belong. If that meant meeting her soulmate, she could cope, so long as they gave her a place to be and feel useful.

Not like a failure. Not useless, like she had, watching the monk and the Scholar die.

\----

She didn’t meet her soulmate, but she did meet Monica, who gave her a place to work and be useful, no matter how many times she tripped and messed up.

Which meant she was right back to square one. With a place to belong, no matter how temporary it might have been, she no longer wanted to meet her soulmate.

And there was a monastery nearby.

The thing about the marks, and this was one of the first things she’d learned from the Scholar about them, was that they could be one of two things.

They were either the first words you heard your soulmate say, or they were the first thing they said to you. There was no way to tell, but they never liked to be straightforward in terms of who it was.

Hers said  _monk_  and she was running a great risk being somewhere with monks nearby.

(There’d been a very short period of time, when Tripitaka was at the house, that she figured she’d meet her soulmate around him. But he was dead now, and it was painful to think about, so she quickly learned to forget about that time.)

\----

Then that demon, who had destroyed her home and took the crown, was at the bar and suddenly she knew what she had to do.

Asking the bard was easy. Getting the crown was a little more difficult. Running was simple. Convincing the monks might have been the hardest part.

Well, up until she decided she had to get to the crown to the Monkey King. Cutting her hair felt like she was completely abandoning what she had been before, and in a way she was.

She ran a hand over her head, to try to get used to it faster. She lied to the head monk. She snuck out of town, leaving people she knew would likely die to cover for her.

\----

Looking back on it, it seemed obvious what was going to happen, why her soulmate would think she was a monk, but she hadn’t been thinking about that.

\----

She thought she might die, that the demon might kill her.

She was okay with that, kind of, mostly just upset that she hadn’t been able to-

And the mountain exploded, it seemed like, and there was a screech and  _wow_  the Monkey King was real -  _well, she knew that -_ andalive again, and she had succeeded!

She nearly had a heart attack when he landed next to her, then, and said, “Ah, monk, if you can fight or have any weapons, now might be a good time.” Because,  _oh,_  and he thought she was a monk, thought she was a boy, too, likely.

(And later, when she thought about it while wearing the dress Davari had forced upon her, she wondered if anyone else felt like they weren’t always a woman, but not always a man. That was later, though, and after a lot had happened and things had changed her perspective on just about everything she’d ever seen.)

But she recovered after a couple seconds enough to say, “No, I- I don't, sorry.” He blinked, like he was trying to piece something together. She remembered the pin before he could figure out whatever he was thinking, though, and offered it to him. “Oh, I have this...”

He grinned at the object like she’d offered him the sun and pressed forward, kissing her and she couldn’t help but go still, especially with his hand at the back of her head, especially knowing all of the legends of his strength (although he didn’t seem to have access to it, but there was no telling when that could come back).

She, belatedly, thought it was kind of nice, but he’d been a little quick to do that. She wondered if he would have done that if she wasn’t his soulmate, or if he hadn’t had known.

But he’d rushed off to fight the demon before she could stay anything.

\----

He showed her his mark, while they were walking back to Monica’s. “See,” He said, and Tripitaka felt a little shocked at how different their marks were.

His mark was in small, neat writing, in one straight line, like it had been marked with care, time and effort obvious with how it was written.

She pulled her sleeve up, showing her own to him. It took up most of her lower right arm, the writing big and she felt a strange kind of comfort at how the lines weren’t quite perfect, off-kilter but still readable.

Monkey had a guarded look on his face as he examined it.

“I like it,” She murmured, and thought that maybe she should tell him that she wasn’t a monk, but held back. “It’s comforting, you know? It hasn’t changed at all, even though I’ve been through so much.” She hummed to herself, thinking. “Well, it has a tiny bit. It used to seem bigger when I was little.”

The look faded a little as he snorted. “They didn’t match up with handwriting, when I learned about them.”

“Really?” That kind of made sense. She had never been able to get her writing in a straight line without something to help her. “Maybe whatever started this thought it would be easier if you could match handwriting, then.”

“Possibly.”

\----

She’d been through so much today. She didn’t know how to feel about what she had learned from the head monk, about Monkey. She couldn’t see it, really. Monkey seemed confused, to her, lost, though he was guarding it well enough. That made sense, too.

But he didn’t seem entirely inclined to help her, either. She’d taken the first thing that had given her some sort of purpose, so it didn’t make much sense to her why he wouldn’t do the same.

Then she got grabbed by Sandy. She had to stop Monkey from killing her by reciting the chant, and she believed the head monk’s story a little more.

She was a little insulted that Monkey thought he didn’t have a choice, even though he’d already chosen what he wanted to do without her input. They needed his help, she knew, but if he really didn’t want to go, she wasn’t sure she would have pushed him to.

She didn't quite have it in her to push anyone, especially her soulmate, to do something they didn’t want to do.

\----

She felt terrible, heading off into the forest, even though she already knew she was going back for them.

The only comfort she could find was in rubbing her mark, gently, over and over, hoping that Monkey could tell that she wasn’t dead, that she was coming back. She just had to plan, first.

(That happened, to a couple people, though it wasn’t common. For those people, though, if they had met their soulmate and needed to communicate something, anything, they could pass touch through the marks. Most of them made patterns, like little languages, to communicate more clearly.

It made her feel better, in the end, to pretend that they could communicate like that.)

\----

She knew Monkey wanted to touch her, hug her, or maybe more after they got out of the prison, but he hovered next to her instead. She was thankful for that, really. He would probably pick her up and figure her secret out and she wasn’t quite ready for that.

She wasn’t ready for him being her soulmate, either, and all that would entail, mostly because she hadn’t had the time to think about it, in between running and fighting and being kidnapped. With the quest, now, she didn’t think there would be a quiet moment to simply  _think_  for a good while.

She was more than happy to stay out of the fight, though she was being sort of held back, really.

And being sent off with an entire village believing in her and her group was exhilarating, and she figured Monkey felt the same, but it was also terrifying. The fate of the world was essentially in their hands, and it would be so, so easy to mess up.

She kept that to herself, though, and had hope. They would argue, sure, but Monkey, with how he held himself around her and kept glancing this way and that, seemed almost desperate not to lose her, although he didn’t know much about her at all.

She was curious about that, though she had the tact not to ask.

\----

Affe made her uncomfortable, in general. And after the argument she’d had with Monkey the night before, she didn’t want to be around him, because, as much as she didn’t like pointing fingers, it was mostly his fault they were in this mess.

And then he made her drink his...  _thing_ , and she felt scared, even more uneasy now that he knew she wasn’t a monk, wasn’t a boy, and was making comments on it. The only reply she could tell him was that she was not his soulmate, and she felt pity for whoever was, though he laughed at her for it.

She thought him especially unreasonable and self-absorbed when he said he’d force Monkey to kill her. “He would never hurt me,” She told him, and was shocked that she believed that herself, after all that she’d seen, after using the crown on him in an upset fit the night before.

She was sick to her stomach while her mouth told Affe the chant, though she knew it wasn’t her fault.

\----

“Monkey, I’m sorry,” She said, and really, truly means it, “I tried not to tell him.”

Monkey doesn’t seem to hear her, though he nods towards her direction. He’s staying shockingly silent, through this, mainly glaring at Affe.

She felt fear and trepidation when Affe told Monkey to kill her. There was a moment, before he spoke, that she thought he might. Why wouldn’t he? Besides them being soulmates, there wasn’t much else tying him to her than false predictions of the future.

But he told Affe “No,” and she could tell by the tone that he was unshakeable in that conviction, no matter how much pain he might go through. She would have grinned in relief, in a sudden rise of fondness for him, if she wasn’t so concerned about the crown.

Sandy’s comment, of it only working for the pure of heart, comforted her, but the prospect of Affe telling them her secret kept her from being too relaxed.

Him dying had the same effect, too. She hated him, and everything he stood for, everything he had caused, but she saw the look of pain on his face as he died and felt a twisted sort of pity for him.

\----

“Tripitaka,” Monkey called, and she felt some sort of comfort as they fell into step with each other. “The truth serum, is it... Is it out of your system yet?”

“Why, you wanna ask me something?” She looked up at him, though he was looking away. There was quite a bit she thought he might want to know, and only some things she was willing to share.

“No,” He said, and she knew it was a lie. “Yes,” He amended when he noticed that she didn’t believe him.

There was a pause, him trying to think of something to say and her waiting for a question.

“No, no, you don’t seem like the kind of person that can tell a lie anyway.”

“You want to know what I'm thinking?” She guessed. He nodded, once, tense in a way she didn’t like seeing him. “I'm thinking if one of the Demons found one of the scrolls, they could have found more.”

“Crossed my mind.” It was a half-muttered statement, more of a regretful thought than an actual reply.

“In which case, what do we do?”

“What would the Scholar tell us to do?” He looked distantly frightened of how she’d react to the question, not in his posture or voice, and not because of the question itself.

She beamed at him, taking the apology for what it was, though it was only a few seconds before she tried to bring her emotions back to her, to keep them a little more hidden. “The Scholar would tell us to walk a path, however narrow and crooked it gets.”

“Well, then, after you.” He gestured towards where the other two were still walking, and she smiled at him again, before trying to catch up with them.

It was a couple seconds after her, that she heard Monkey start walking too.

\----

(“What do you know of the monk?” Gwen asks him, later. He finds he has many ways to answer that.

He knows that when the marks were first explained to him, back when he was first found, he was nervous and would avoid the monks as much as he could whenever they were around. He didn’t like the unknown, and being tied down like  _that,_ like the others always said would be good for him - ‘to have a person controlling him, other than the Master’ - was one of the most unknown things he was aware of at the time.

He knows the other Gods didn’t mean ‘control’ quite so literally when they said it. He found he didn’t mind the literal part much, because it wasn’t often used or brought up.

He knows that he thought the monk was cute, when he’d first seen him, and that hadn’t changed much, other than Tripitaka was sometimes cuter in situations he shouldn’t have been.

He knows that he has some sort of feelings for him, too. He knows that he’d protect the monk with his life, regardless of how he’d felt about that in the beginning, before he’d met Tripitaka and after they’d spent some time together.

He knows that, as much as he enjoys Sandy being her weird self and arguing with Pigsy, he misses that brief period of time where it was just him and the monk.

He knows that the monk is, or was, scared of being tied down, in the same way he was before all of this. He knows he feels relieved that there’s not an option like that, anymore, not while the quest is going on.

He knows he trusts the monk. Trusts him with control over the crown, trusts him not to misuse it, trusts him to know when it’s necessary to recite the chant and when he can just call for Monkey to stop.

He knows that after losing the Master, and more so after the Nightmare Factory, he’s terrified of Tripitaka dying, or leaving, or generally anything bad happening to him. He knows, in the same vein, that the monk would never voluntarily leave them unless he thought it was the only option, but it does not stop the fear.

He knows he’s put a lot more of his trust and effort into the monk than he’d ever put into anything while with the Gods.

But he doesn’t say that, can’t say that. He doesn’t really like Gwen, although he knows her well, and he’d never trusted any of the Gods except for Master, anyhow.

So, he says, instead, “He let me out. He was sad, you see, had a lot of questions.” Very cute, he thinks privately, and he rubs where his mark is, on the upper inside of his left arm.

She seems to get the hint and nods mostly to herself. She asks a couple more questions and goes back over to the monk. He thinks she’s still a little confused over how a human who looks so weak could manage all that he did, and finds himself upset, slightly, that his monk is being underestimated like that.

He flinches, hoping that it was mostly internally, at that.  _His monk_. When did Tripitaka become that?)

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me @witchipedia-aus on tumblr!  
> (leave comments here, too, i live for feedback)


End file.
